Why I Don't Like Beaches

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As I was looking at free pictures for my last blog post of the beach, I had this random thought: I love the beach, but I never actually go there.

I mean, right now I don't go because I live in Kansas. There aren't many beaches (see: none) out here, so that's not a surprise. What's strange though is that I lived in Florida for five years before I moved here. I moved to Kansas from St. Petersburg, FL, and lived about ten minutes from the beach. I wanted to live on the beach, but I never wanted to go out there and hang out.

First, it's hot. In Florida, there's no such thing as waiting until it cools down a little. I'd sweat in the middle of December, which was strange for me.

Two, there's a lot of people. I'm not anti-social, but I'm not a fan of being around a large group of people I don't know. I'm more of a small group of people kind of guy. The people at the beach annoy me for the most part too. They leave their trash everywhere, they get drunk and loud, and they park their cars everywhere. It's a mess. My friend tried to invite me to a beach party my first year there, and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to tell me how many people were going to be there. I passed.

Even now though, I keep thinking how great it is going to be to spend time on the beaches in Southern Cali. I titled the picture I used that. What's actually going to happen is I'll get there, spend ten minutes at the beach, and then decide that I'd rather get some pizza and binge watch something on Netflix. That's how it works for me. I'd imagine the beaches in California aren't much different than the ones in Florida. There's a bunch of sand and wind, people are everywhere, and tourist do whatever they want because they don't have to deal with the aftermath.

I've never been to a beach on the west coast though, so I'm not sure. I don't want to get my hopes up though, so I'll assume it's the same. What I'm hoping to find are beaches that aren't as populated. I'm thinking I'll have to go up to northern California for that, or maybe Oregon. I know rocky beaches aren't that popular, but I like them. I don't like the sand, I just like the visual of the ocean and the way it stretches forever. I want a place to get away from people, but that might be an unrealistic expectation.

I might do a beach tour while I'm out there and rank them for everyone. I'll give them a 1-10 score based on how much they annoy me. Granted, it's subjective, but it's my ranking, so I'm allowed some leeway I suppose. For now, I'm thinking about traveling with pets and whether or not it's feasible to fly them out west instead of having them in an RV the whole time. I don't think I can do it though; I'll have to explain later in another article.

Gabe

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